Gov. Edwards, Mayor Landrieu Survey New Orleans Flood Damage

Gov. John Bel Edwards, left, and Mayor Mitch Landrieu, center, talk to members of the media outside of Willie Mae's Restaurant in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. The restaurant was one of several that flooded Saturday.

Jessica Rosgaard
/ WWNO

Originally published on August 11, 2017 9:46 am

Gov. John Bel Edwards toured flood damage in New Orleans Monday. Edwards and Mayor Mitch Landrieu spoke to business owners and residents in the Treme where cleanup is underway.

Windell Bean’s family has owned their home on St. Ann for 53 years. Other than Katrina, the house hasn’t flooded since 1978. That is until Saturday, when it took on 4 inches of water.

“I stood up on my porch,” says Bean, “and the drains were taking water in, and then all of a sudden it just stopped and then the water started coming up. I said, ‘it’s time to move vehicles.’”

Bean was ripping carpet out of his home as Gov. Edwards surveyed the damaged neighborhood. Bean says flooding is just part of life in New Orleans — but he’s hopeful that infrastructure improvements will fix some recent problems.

“They’re doing a lot of drainage work,” Bean says, “so I hope it gets better. I really do. You live in this area, you know what to expect. You just take on the water, you do the clean up, you move on.”

In a press conference, Mayor Mitch Landrieu responded to concerns about the city's pumping system, saying flooding was inevitable with 8 to 10 inches of rain in a short time.

“We have one of the best pumping systems in the world,” says Landrieu, “but we will find out if there was a problem. Having said that — the city was going to flood anyway from this particular event."

City Council will hold a meeting Tuesday afternoon to discuss whether or not the pumping stations worked properly.

Support for the Coastal Desk comes from the Walton Family Foundation, the Coypu Foundation, the Greater New Orleans Foundation, and local listeners.

Related Content

“Prior to and throughout the response to the 2016 floods, FEMA was a very good partner. But the transition from response to recovery is where challenges arose,” Governor John Bel Edwards told the U.S. House Oversight Committee on Flood Recovery and Governmental Affairs. He testified Wednesday in response to complaints about the pace of the recovery from August’s devastating floods across south Louisiana.

In August, residents of southeast Louisiana were left stunned when water destroyed towns during a so-called 1,000 year rain. The National Weather Service said the flooding was triggered by a slow-moving, low-pressure weather system that dumped as much as two feet of rain over a matter of days. But as Della Hasselle reports, others say some of the damage could have been prevented, and that one highway in particular is to blame.